SF State finds glowing shrooms
Biologists at San Francisco State University (my alma mater) have discovered seven new species of bio-luminescent mushrooms—completely unaided by mind-altering fungi. Biology professor Dennis Desjardin and his team discovered the species of mushrooms in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico. Four of the discovered species are completely new to science and three have never been known to glow.
Desjardin named two of the new species after movements in Mozart’s Requiem – Mycena luxaeterna (eternal light) and Mycena luxperpetua (perpetual light). Both glow 24 hours a day.
All the new mushrooms belong to the genus Mycena, which also include the mushrooms that produce the hallucinogen psilocybin. Mycena also includes 33 species that glow, collectively and commonly known as foxfire.
Bioluminescent mushrooms glow as they break down organic matter. When a high-energy molecule is broken down into a lower-energy one, it throws out a few photons (light). In biology the process is sometimes referred to as “reverse photosynthesis.”
Desjardin thinks the newly discovered mushrooms glow to attract nocturnal animals that may help in spreading spores.
